Monday, October 22, 2012

For Want Of A Pitcher: The Elite Free Agents.

Before we look at the available options on the free-agent
pitching market, there are two key points to make. The first is that this is
the year to be bold and aggressive if you want to corral a high-end free agent.
With TV revenues – both local and national – booming throughout baseball,
expect payrolls to follow. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if free agents who
sign this winter get 15-20% more money than comparable players on the market
last winter.

Dayton Moore has a history of making big transactions within
days of the end of the World Series, but they tend to be trades, and they tend
to be ill-advised, like trading the former Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs (October
31st) or trading Mark Teahen for Chris Getz and Josh Fields (November 6th) or
trading David DeJesus for Vinny Mazzaro and Justin Marks (November 10th) or trading
Ramon Ramirez for Coco Crisp (November 19th). By contrast, his big free-agent
signings (Jose Guillen and Gil Meche) were both in December, around the time of
the Winter Meetings.

I think this might be the year to try to get the jump on the
market, and make a pre-emptive offer to a top-tier pitcher in November, an
offer that might look overpriced when it’s announced, but that looks like a
bargain when the rest of the market has settled in January. It means offering a
potential #2 starter, the kind of guy who got $12-13 million in the past,
closer to $15 million a year. But that same pitcher might cost $16 million a
year, or get a five-year deal instead of a four-year deal, a month or two
later.

And that brings me to my second point, which is that no matter
what the Royals say publicly, THEY CAN AFFORD IT, and don’t believe them if
they say otherwise. This has been done elsewhere, but here’s a quick breakdown
of the Royals’ payroll obligations for 2013:

Already Signed (6
players, $33 million)

Alex Gordon, $9 million

Billy Butler, $8 million

Jeff Francoeur, $7.5 million

Bruce Chen, $4.5 million

Alcides Escobar, $3 million

Salvador Perez, $1 million

Arbitration Eligible
(3 players, $4.5 million)

Felipe Paulino, $2.7 million

Chris Getz, $1.2 million

Blake Wood, $600,000

The figures for the arbitration-eligible players are
estimates which I took from MLB Trade Rumors here.

That’s $38 million going to nine players. Here’s the thing:
the other 16 players on the Royals’ active roster would all be pre-arbitration
eligible players, earning only slightly more than the major league minimum of
$480,000 on average.

We’ll throw in some extra costs here; Aaron Crow will make
at least $1 million next season, the result of the major-league contract he
signed out of the draft. Joakim Soria is owed $750,000 in a buyout, and will
probably re-sign a smaller incentive-laden deal. After his surgery I suggested
something like $2.5 million guaranteed, so let’s run with that. That’s $41.5
million for 11 players. Let’s say the other 14 players average about $580,000
each – let’s say $8.12 million. Throw in Noel Arguelles and the $1.38 million he’ll
make to spend another year in the minors, and that’s a grand total of $51
million.

(By the way, you’ll notice who’s missing from my list: Luke
Hochevar, who would earn around $4.4 million in arbitration next year.)

The Royals’ payroll this season was over $63 million. Their
payroll was close to $75 million in both 2009 and 2010. As I argued earlier,
the Royals will be earning an additional $27 million in national TV revenue in
2014 – so if we take the Royals at their word that they were only breaking even
in 2009-2010, that means their break-even point would be over $100 million by
2014.

Let’s be charitable and say the Royals should have a payroll
of $85 million next season. That’s $34
million to play with.

Let me repeat that: THE ROYALS HAVE $34 MILLION TO PLAY
WITH.

Let’s say they re-sign Jeremy Guthrie, and pay him $8
million in 2013. Let’s say the Royals spend another $2 million on low-end free
agents, say a backup catcher, or even another reliever beyond Soria*.

*: Although why they’d
do this is beyond me. Consider this: after the Royals traded Jonathan Broxton
and waived Jose Mijares, EVERY SINGLE RELIEVER in their bullpen was
pre-arbitration eligible. Not only that, but every one of them will still not
be eligible for arbitration next year. A
Soria/Holland/Herrera/Collins/Crow/Coleman bullpen would cost under $6 million
next season, giving the Royals the leeway to spend their money elsewhere.

That still leaves $24 million. That means every single free
agent is in play. Even if they go cheap and try to keep the payroll in the
$75-80 million range, they can add an additional $14-19 million worth of
contracts, which should include every free agent pitcher but one.

That one is Zack
Greinke, of course, for whom the bidding will probably start at 5 years,
$100 million – the contract he reportedly turned down from the Brewers before
they traded him. After a rough early start with the Angels, that had people
once again questioning his mental toughness, he finished strong: a 2.04 ERA in
his last eight starts, allowing fewer than a baserunner per inning.

There is an assumption in certain circles that the Royals
simply have no chance of signing Greinke, given the awkward way he left town. I
don’t necessarily agree with that. I think the Royals have as much of a chance
to sign Greinke as they would any pitcher who was clearly the prize of the
free-agent market. Which is to say, exceedingly slim, but not zero. If
anything, their chances might be slightly higher, simply because some free
agents want to seek out the bright lights of the big cities, and would cross
Kansas City off their list before even talking numbers. Greinke, it’s safe to say,
does not want to play for the Yankees come hell or high water.

The two obstacles for the Royals are the same as always:
their willingness to spend, and their ability to win. Regarding the first, I
think that it’s going to take something in the range of 6 years and $130
million to sign Greinke. While the Royals can afford that, it would require
them to put a substantial amount of their payoll into one player – a pitcher,
no less. If Greinke gets hurt, you’ve just flushed a quarter of your payroll
down the drain.

In Greinke’s defense, his combination of mechanics, low
workload in his early 20s (thanks in part to his sabbatical), and injury
history make him about as good a bet to stay healthy as any pitcher in the
major leagues. My friend Will Carroll publishes his injury risk scores for
every player during spring training, and two or three years ago, Greinke had
the lowest score Carroll had ever given a pitcher. After he was called up in
2004, Greinke didn’t miss a start until he walked away from the team two years
later; after he went back into the rotation for good in August, 2007, the only
time he’s missed a start was when he broke some ribs playing basketball in the
spring of 2011 and missed the month of April.

He’s as good a bet for 32 starts and 200 innings a year as
anyone in baseball. He just turned 29 yesterday, so even a six-year deal would
only take him through his age-34 season. I understand the risk of putting too
many eggs in one basket. But this is one sturdy basket.

The other obstacle is simply that Greinke doesn’t want to
play for a team that doesn’t have a chance of winning; that’s the reason he
forced his way out of town in the first place. And let’s face it – the Royals
didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory by going 72-90 this year. You’d like
to think the Royals can sell Greinke on the young talent on the team – not just
on the farm, but on the team – and the fact that the only thing that is keeping
the Royals from a winning record is the same thing that his addition would
correct.

But there’s another way the Royals can convince Greinke that
they mean business about winning. Ten years ago, the Royals signed Mike Sweeney
to a 5-year, $55 million contract that contained an unprecedented clause: if
the Royals failed to finish at .500 in either 2003 or 2004, Sweeney would be
able to void the last three years of the contract. The contract was actually
held up briefly until MLB approved the language of the deal, because it was the
first deal to contain a provision of this kind.

The Royals went 83-79 in the first year of the contract,
rendering the clause moot, and then Sweeney started getting hurt so much that
fans wished the Royals hadn’t finished above .500 so that Sweeney could have
walked away. But that doesn’t change the fact that the clause was an inspired
idea, making it possible for the Royals to sign one of their best players to a
long-term deal while providing some guarantees to the player that he wouldn’t
play for a loser forever.

If the Royals want to be serious about pursuing Greinke,
they should offer him the same proviso – if the Royals don’t have a winning
record in 2013 or 2014, he can walk away. If the Royals are as good as they
think they are, there’s no risk in the guarantee. (And if you’re Dayton Moore,
you know that if you’re not over .500 by 2014, you’re going to be out of a job
anyway.) But from what we know of Greinke, that kind of reassurance might mean
the difference between coming back to Kansas City and going elsewhere.

I doubt that he returns, because I doubt the Royals are
serious about pursuing him. But they should be. He’s the only guaranteed
game-changer on the market, and that’s worth the premium they’d have to pay.

But if they can’t land Greinke or don’t want to try, then
they need to go all-in on Anibal Sanchez.
Those of you who catch my radio spots have heard me talk up Sanchez as the
ideal free-agent target for months now; he’s this year’s version of Edwin
Jackson for me.

Sanchez was a highly-regarded prospect with the Red Sox when
he was traded along with Hanley Ramirez for Josh Beckett after the 2005 season.
He had a fine rookie season in 2006 (2.83 ERA in 114 innings) but tore his
labrum in early 2007, and missed more than a year. He returned in 2008 and was
not effective; in 2009 he regained his effectiveness, and in 2010 he added
durability to his talents. He has thrown between 195 and 196 innings each of
the last three years, with ERAs ranging from 3.55 to 3.86.

The injury history has to be somewhat concerning; labrum
tears are no joke. But in a way he reminds me of Gil Meche, who missed over TWO
years following labrum surgery, but had been healthy for years before the
Royals signed him – and if the Royals hadn’t criminally neglected his shoulder
pain in the third year of his contract, he might still be pitching today.

Sanchez was traded to the Tigers this summer, and in 12
starts gave them a 3.74 ERA. Even though it was only 12 starts, it is very
reassuring that he proved he could handle AL competition. His performance did
suffer a little – his strikeout rate dropped to 6.9 per 9 innings, which would
be his lowest rate since returning from surgery. But that’s still an acceptable
rate for a starting pitcher in the AL, particularly one with well above-average
(and improving) command. Sanchez’s walk rate has dropped from 3.2 per 9 in
2010, to 2.9 per 9 in 2011, to 2.5 per 9 before he was traded, to 1.8 per 9
after he was traded. This is the progression you’d expect to see from a
starting pitcher as he ages – his strikeout rate dips slowly, but his walk rate
drops as well, allowing him to maintain his effectiveness.

Plus, Sanchez’s strikeout rate is starting from a high
enough point that he could lose some of his stuff and remain effective. He
struck out 202 batters in 196 innings just last season; the only qualifying
starters with a higher strikeout rate were Greinke, Brandon Morrow, and Clayton
Kershaw. I’d expect a small bounce upward in Sanchez’s strikeout rate next
year, particularly since his fastball is not
losing velocity – according to Pitch f/x, his average fastball velocity has
been between 91.5 and 91.8 mph each of the last three years.

Sanchez isn’t an ace, but he’s perfectly capable of being a
#2 starter. He has shown remarkable consistency over the last three seasons,
has taken the ball every time out, and has the ability to miss bats. He’s had
the opportunity to face AL competition and has passed the test so far. He’ll
turn 29 next February, so he’s young enough to justify a long-term deal. And –
like Greinke – because he was traded during the season, he won’t cost the Royals draft pick compensation. That’s a rule change
in the new CBA; the Tigers won’t get a draft pick if he signs elsewhere, and
the team that signs him won’t lose one.

Really, the only thing not to like about him is that he
keeps pitching well for the Tigers in the postseason and jacking up his price.
He threw 6.1 innings against the A’s in the ALDS, allowing only two runs, then
threw seven shutout innings against the Yankees in the ALCS. Postseason
performances attract attention; probably too much attention, given how small of
a sample size they are.

The more I think about it, the more I like the Gil Meche
comp – Sanchez can be a durable #2 starter for 3-4 years, and perhaps longer.
The problem is that while only a few teams believed in Meche given his track
record, there’s a much longer line of teams interested in Sanchez. Throw all
the new TV money on the pile, and what was 5 years, $55 million for Meche is
probably going to be 5 years, $70 million at the minimum for Sanchez. I could
see 5/$75 or even 5/$80 as the asking price.

The thing is, I’d probably pay it. Assuming his health woes
are behind him – and he’s pitching better than ever, so I’m thinking they are –
he’s already an above-average starter, and there’s upside here that he could
refine his command even more and be a 210 inning, 3.30 ERA pitcher for the next
few years. And given that the Royals are unlikely to convince Greinke to sign
quickly no matter what they throw at him, the single piece of advice I would give
Dayton Moore is this: the moment teams are allowed to talk to free agents, get
Sanchez’s agent on the phone, offer him 5 years and $70 million, and don’t let
him hang up until you’ve got a deal done.

If the Royals are unable to get this year’s version of Edwin Jackson, they would be
well-advised to get in touch with the real thing. They showed no interest in
him last winter, so instead he signed a 1-year, $11 million deal with the
Nationals, and then went out and did pretty much what you’d expect him to do:
he made 31 starts (his sixth straight year with 31+ GS), threw 190 innings, and
had a 4.03 ERA. His ERA was a little inflated by giving up eight earnies in 1.1
innings in his next-to-last start of the year; he actually set a career-high
with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.17.

Speaking of consistency, Jackson’s xFIP – my favorite single
stat to evaluate a pitcher’s effectiveness, scaled to ERA – the last three
years reads 3.71, 3.73, 3.79.

Oh, and the Nationals led the major leagues with 98 wins.
That probably should count for something.

I’m actually not quite
as high on Jackson as I was last winter. While he went out and had a season
essentially identical to his performances the previous three years, part of my
obsession with him was the small chance that he would have a breakout season
and establish himself as an ace-level starter. That could still happen, but
he’s a year older now and the odds are slightly less. Also, given that he spent
the whole year in the NL for the first time in his career, I would have liked
to see him take a step forward just because the quality of competition was
worse.

But honestly, these are small quibbles. Jackson is still young enough to break
out – he turned 29, making him one month older than Greinke and five months older
than Sanchez. While his ERA drifted over to the wrong side of 4, what’s more
important is that he set a career high in strikeouts per nine innings at 8.0
(helped no doubt by facing opposing pitchers at the plate). And while Sanchez
has raised his price tag in October, Jackson’s lukewarm performance this month
– he allowed four runs in five innings in his only start, then gave up a run in
a relief inning when Davey Johnson got desperate for bullpen help in Game 5 –
seems to have knocked his price down a peg.

Last year, I suggested that the Royals offer him 4 years,
$50 million. He might not have accepted it at the time, but it’s noteworthy
that he got rid of Scott Boras as his agent. The Pirates offered him a 3-year,
$27 million contract that he rejected in favor of the one-year deal. While
Boras was probably right to reject it – Jackson’s going to make more than $16
million over the next two years – Jackson’s decision to drop Boras suggests an
unwillingness to play hardball.

Frankly, even though Jackson’s not quite as appealing as he was a year ago, the
market inflation is so great that 4 and $50 sounds like a great deal right now.
If Sanchez is worth $14 million a year for 5 years, then Jackson’s worth at
least $13 million a year for 4, or $12 million a year for 5. If that sounds
like way too much money, consider that after Jackson, the quality of starting
pitchers available drops off a cliff.

The man standing at the edge of the precipice is Kyle Lohse. If I could give Dayton
Moore a second piece of advice, it would be this: STAY AWAY FROM KYLE LOHSE.

Not that I expect Moore to listen to me. As Bob Dutton
reported earlier this month, “there are
indications the Royals have right-handers Anibal Sanchez and Kyle Lohse at the
top of their list.” And if Dutton’s reporting it, you can take that to the
bank.

So let’s compare the two, shall we?

- Sanchez turns 29 in February. Lohse turned 34 earlier this
month.

- Sanchez has made 31+ starts each of the last three years.
Lohse made just 18 starts in 2010, missing half the season following surgery to
relieve compartment syndrome in his elbow.

- Sanchez has had ERAs ranging from 3.55 to 3.86 each of the
last three years. Lohse had a 6.55 ERA in 2010.

- Sanchez’s ERAs the last three years are a fair representation
of his performance – he has a 3.69 ERA, and a 3.63 xFIP. While Lohse has a 2.86
ERA this year, and a 3.39 ERA last year, his xFIP was 3.96 this year, 4.04 last
year. The take-home conclusion: while Lohse has had better ERAs the last two
seasons, he has actually pitched worse than Sanchez, but has been the
beneficiary of good luck and good defense.

- On that subject, Sanchez’s BABIP the last three years have
been eerily consistent - .310 this year, .310 last year, .305 in 2010. Lohse,
on the other hand, had a .262 BABIP this year and a .269 BABIP last year. Those
are not sustainable – his career BABIP is .297. (In his disastrous 2010, it was
.364.) If you don’t like the fancy-pants numbers, just trust me on this: Lohse
has been lucky for the last two years. Sanchez hasn’t. And since Kansas City is
the place where luck goes to die, I’d rather have the pitcher whose success
doesn’t depend on it.

- Sanchez misses bats. He struck out 7.7 batters per 9 this
season, and his career rate is 7.6 per 9. Lohse does not. His strikeout rate
was 6.1 batters per 9 this season, and that’s his highest rate in a full season
since his rookie year in 2002.

- Sanchez at least spent half of this season in the AL.
Lohse hasn’t pitched in the AL since the Twins traded him away in 2006. He has
a career 4.88 ERA in the AL, vs. 4.07 in the NL. That’s not entirely fair to
him – he’s a different pitcher now than he was in his 20s – but it’s fair to
wonder whether he can make the adjustment back to the better league.

On the subject of Lohse being a different pitcher today,
that’s one of the things that worries me most about him. He joined the
Cardinals in 2008, a 29-year-old pitcher who had just come off a mediocre
season for the Reds and Phillies – a 4.62 ERA in 193 innings. Of course, Dave
Duncan’s specialty has always been, more or less, 29-year-old veteran starters
with mediocre results, and sure enough in his first year with the Cardinals,
Lohse had a 3.78 ERA in 200 innings, as he cut both his home runs and walks by
about 20%.

That’s what Dave Duncan did – by preaching command of the
sinker above all, he got pitchers to throw more strikes and give up fewer
homers. In five seasons with the Cardinals, Lohse has walked 2.2 batters and
allowed 0.9 homers per 9 innings. Everywhere else, he’s allowed 2.8 walks and
1.2 homers per 9 innings. Granted, Duncan retired after last season and Lohse
was better than ever this year – but I’d be very worried that whatever made
Lohse such an effective pitcher in St. Louis will stay in St. Louis when he
leaves.

I made the point with Sanchez that as a pitcher ages, his
strikeout rate tends to suffer, but because his walk rate drops in tandem, his
overall effectiveness may not decline. The problem for Lohse is that his walk
rate is so low that there’s not much more he can improve in that regard.

Lohse reminds me of no one so much as Joel Pineiro, who
washed ashore in St. Louis after the Mariners and Red Sox gave up on him.
Duncan got him to cut his walk rate in half, and in 2009 he threw 214 innings, walked
27 batters (the lowest walk rate in the NL) and allowed just 11 homers. Even
though he struck out just 105 batters, he was very effective, with a 3.49 ERA.

Pineiro then signed a two-year, $16 million contract with
the Angels. In his first year, he only made 23 starts but posted a solid 3.84
ERA – in one of the best pitchers’ parks in the league, mind you. In 2011, he
had a 5.13 ERA in 146 innings. He then tore his labrum and his career is in
jeopardy.

Pineiro was a more extreme version of Lohse, granted. In his
walk year, Pineiro struck out just 4.4 batters per 9 innings. But like Pineiro,
Lohse owes his success primarily to not walking anyone. And unlike Pineiro,
you’re not getting Lohse for 2 years and $18 million. On 810 WHB, Buster Olney
speculated that it would take 5 years and $75 million to sign Lohse.

Which is insane. It’s one thing to give $75 million to a
pitcher with strikeout stuff in his late 20s. It’s quite another to give that
much money to a command-and-control pitcher in the inferior league for his age
34 through age 38 seasons. It’s telling that the Cardinals did not sign Lohse
to a long-term deal this summer, even while they were signing teammate Jake
Westbrook to a two-year extension.

Oh, and assuming the Cardinals offer Lohse a qualifying
offer (a 1 year, $13.3 million deal, which they almost certainly will), signing
Lohse will cost the Royals the supplemental draft pick they got in the new
competitive balance lottery. That will probably be around the #35 pick overall
– that’s not chump change. (This would also apply to Edwin Jackson, I should
point out.)

My suspicion is that one of the reasons the Royals have
interest in Lohse is because they think he just needs a good defense behind
him, and they’ve bought into the fiction that the Royals have a great defense.
I hate to tell them this, but the Royals don’t have a great defense. There’s no
evidence that they even have a good
defense. There is evidence that they
have one of the worst defenses in baseball.

Our ability to evaluate a player’s defense using statistics is still developing. However, our
ability to evaluate the defense of a team
as a whole is actually quite good. The statistic Defensive Efficiency –
essentially, the percentage of balls in play that are turned into outs – is a
fairly strong measure of team defense.

In 2012, the Royals ranked 28th in the majors in Defensive
Efficiency, at .689. They ranked dead last in the AL, ahead of only the Brewers
and Rockies, and right behind the Tigers.

Like you, I look at the team on the field and I wonder how
this can be true. Mike Moustakas is Gold Glove-caliber, as is Alex Gordon.
Alcides Escobar wasn’t quite as brilliant as he was in 2011, but was still
above-average. Lorenzo Cain was terrific in center field. Salvador Perez is
Ivan Rodriguez Jr. But again, this isn’t a measure of a single player, where
errors are more likely, but the measurement of an entire team. It’s the
difference between a political poll that surveys 300 voters vs. 3000 voters –
the larger the sample size, the smaller the margin of error.

And if you look at what Defensive Efficiency says about
other teams, you have to concede it’s a pretty accurate measure. The Tigers are
winning despite a brutal defense, using the same philosophy the Brewers did
last season. The best two defenses in baseball are the Angels and Rays, which
makes sense. The A’s aren’t far behind them. The Orioles have a good defense.
The Indians don’t.

So instead of fighting that conclusion, we need to figure
out what that’s the case. Is Eric Hosmer’s positioning still hindering his
defense? (Probably.) Is Jeff Francoeur just that bad? (In terms of his range –
ignoring his arm – absolutely.) Can anyone on this team play defense at second
base? (Maybe not – all five guys the Royals used there ranked below average,
and as a whole, they were 25(!) runs below average.)

It’s possible that the Royals’ pitching staff was so bad
that they made the defense look worse than it was, but I imagine such an impact
was minimal. For one thing, as bad as the rotation was, the bullpen was
above-average. So I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that the
Royals have a bad defense. Maybe they’ll bounce back next year, now that Yuni
is gone and Francoeur is likely to be put out to pasture soon. But for now, at
least, I wouldn’t be signing a starting pitcher whose greatest virtue is that
he puts his defense to work.

Which means I wouldn’t sign Kyle Lohse. Certainly not for
the money it will take to get him.

I’ll get to the other free agents later, guys like Hiroki
Kuroda and Shaun Marcum and the rest. But for now, the Royals could hardly do
better than to find a way to reel in one of Greinke, Sanchez, or Jackson. And
they could hardly do worse than to sign Kyle Lohse.

32 comments:

and they tend to be ill-advised, like trading the former Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs (October 31st)

Ok, didn’t work out.

or trading Mark Teahen for Chris Getz and Josh Fields (November 6th)

Worked out better for the Royals.

or trading David DeJesus for Vinny Mazzaro and Justin Marks (November 10th)

Still quite possibly will work out better for the Royals.

or trading Ramon Ramirez for Coco Crisp (November 19th)

Probably would have worked out better for the Royals if Crisp wouldn’t have injured both shoulders.

******It means offering a potential #2 starter, the kind of guy who got $12-13 million in the past, closer to $15 million a year.

Let’s say they re-sign Jeremy Guthrie, and pay him $8 million in 2013.

So, a potential #2 starter will get $15 million a year, but they’ll resign Guthrie for $8 million. Makes perfect sense in Rany world.

Throw in Noel Arguelles and the $1.38 million he’ll make to spend another year in the minors

Rany *loved* Arguelles when he was signed (“Arguelles is the $7 million cherry on the top of what was already a formidable amount of pitching depth in the minors.”). Now he uses him to talk crap on the Royals.

******

As far as Greinke: remember when Rany fell in line with everybody else, and was really down on drafting Greinke because he was a high school pitcher, and every smart team was drafting college guys?

I doubt that he returns, because I doubt the Royals are serious about pursuing him.

Nothing like just throwing out casual accusations to try to make the Royals sound worse..

5 years, $55 million for Meche is probably going to be 5 years, $70 million at the minimum for Sanchez. I could see 5/$75 or even 5/$80 as the asking price.

If every single team all of the sudden has tens of millions of dollars to start throwing around, it’s probably more like 5/$100, or 5/$125..

(RE Jackson) and had a 4.03 ERA. His ERA was a little inflated by giving up eight earnies in 1.1 innings in his next-to-last start of the year;

That still counts to you when you’re talking shit on other pitchers, though..

Granted, Duncan retired after last season and Lohse was better than ever this year – but I’d be very worried that whatever made Lohse such an effective pitcher in St. Louis will stay in St. Louis when he leaves.

Because, if Duncan’s not there to whisper in his ear, he’ll magically forget everything he’s ever heard up until this point..

(RE Pineiro): In 2011, he had a 5.13 ERA in 146 innings. He then tore his labrum and his career is in jeopardy.

You don’t think he might have injured it sometime during that season?

It’s possible that the Royals’ pitching staff was so bad that they made the defense look worse than it was, but I imagine such an impact was minimal.

The previous commenter or two needs to get a life. It is easy to be critical. What body of work have you produced that anyone can criticize? At least Rany is putting his thoughts out there and has for quite some time.

I am hoping for Sanchez and Guthrie to be signed.

I am also of the opinion that Ventura should start the season in the bullpen and slowly be given the chance to start.

Having read this piece convinces me that the Royals will sign Kyle Lohse to a huge deal and Dayton Moore will call it the best deal he's ever made. He'll be great competition for Hoch. I'll probably try to stop caring about the Royals.

Rany, I never thought I'd say this..I agree with you!Anibal will be a great person to have in KC..there are also some other people that might be worth a risk though not a high one, such as Dempster, Marcum, Kurdoa, Peavy, Baker, Haren/Santana, Correia, Liriano, and even Big Z. Obviously some of these guys are #3s or 4s, but most have a breakout possibility, and if we were to get a 5 ERA, I'd rather have it coming from someone who gets Ks and pitches 200ip rather than Chen and Hochevar.

If David Dejesus for Vin Mazzaro and Marks works out for us I'll eat my hat.

It's easy to pick apart everything Rany says, but out of anyone who still analyzes and writes about the Royals, he's basically the only one that hasn't turned complete cynic. He still carries some degree of optimism.

He's just being real with what he's writing, especially given the track record of this organization.

As a Royals fan I'm PUMPED they've got all this money to spend. I'm also terrified at the thought of spending 15 million a year on Lohse, precisely because I know it's a real possibility.

I would much rather they sign a number 1/2 (like zackkkk, dreaming I know, or sanchez) than two number threes. It will say a lot about moore and his faith in the blessed farm he's built if he chooses to sign two number 3's. I would even throw that extra year onto sanchez to get it to about 6/85-90. This team needs to build around above average arms and sanchez is where you start. I know people are going to be pissed if it's one addition but i say it's better than the alternative.

replace sanchez for greinke and it goes as well but I'm not too optimistic on that.

I see Guthrie (Royals' version) and Lohse as very similar. I'd love to have one of them, but not both, particularly if it requires a 3 year or greater commitment. Lohse' expected Babip based on his batted ball data in 2012 was .330, a whopping 68 points higher than his actual Babip. It looks like a lot of luck was involved there. And since Guthrie has a much lower expected price tag, I'd definitely lean towards him.

Love your idea of the Sweeney clause for Greinke, though I harbor no realistic hope that he's coming back.

One quibble, I'm surprised that you cite Babip so freely without examining the underlying batted ball data. It seems to me that the two are inextricable.

You wrote, "So I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that the Royals have a bad defense."

If you examine the batted ball data for the Royals' pitching staff as a whole, their xBabip was .318, and since DER is the inverse of Babip, you can say that their expected DER should have been .682, 7 points lower than their actual DER. So it appears that the defense actually helped the pitching staff, albeit slightly. My conclusion would be that the onus for the poor DER is on the pitchers and their propensity for allowing hard contact (line drives, chiefly).

Rany can you take a look at Marco Scutaro. Signing him allows us to cut Chris Getz so even if we had to offer the same $6M he's making this year (which I doubt a 37 yo 2B gets), it's less than a $5M increase. Call this a band aid until Colon or one of the younger middle infielders can take over. I realize the money is better spent on starters but considering Ned Yost can't make out a lineup, having Scutaro to hit at the top of order and play good defense appeals to me as a way to make up for poor managerial skills.

Scutaro would be an interesting target but given his postseason it looks like he in the next Juan Uribe. Here are list of guys who could be had pretty cheap who are good targets to be good defenders and maybe decent bats at 2B

Jerry Hairston JR 102 OPS+ Mark Ellis 93OPS+Nick Punto 65OPS+ 122OPS+ in 2011DJ Lemathieu 84OPS+ three of those guys are Dodgers so they probably will want to move one.

Why would the Royals consider signing a costly free agent backup catcher? If they decide not to continue with Brayan Pena, they have Max Ramirez waiting at Omaha. If Greinke got injured, wouldn't insurance pay his salary, or a major portion of it, back to the Royals?

Deep Dixie- Good point about DER. It has always been inherently flawed as it assumes that all contact is the same. Some teams have more flyball pitchers or more groundball pitchers, which skew the numbers. In the Royals case, they give up more line drives.

Dan Hutson - Perhaps you should watch the entire baseball season instead of just tuning in for the ASG and World series. In the last 8 years, the leagues have played 2016 games between the leagues, and the AL has won more games every year. As a whole, they have a .556 winning percentage over this time, which means the average AL team would be a 90 win team in the NL. (and the average NL team would lose 90 in the AL) The NL's best winning percentage against the AL in a season is .480. One year the AL had a .611 winning percentage against the NL, which would have given them the best record in the NL that year.

Unknown, I would take that offensive season from Dejesus with his defense over Mazzaro and Marks every day of the week and twice on Sunday. In fact, I'd offer them two to the Cubs along with Jeff Francouer for Dejesus right now! Marks might get a cup of coffee because, let's face it, we're the Royals, but honestly he's not a major league pitcher. We all know how bad Vin Mazzaro is.

"So, a potential #2 starter will get $15 million a year, but they’ll resign Guthrie for $8 million. Makes perfect sense in Rany world."

Um, Guthrie isn't a #2 starter. He's a #3 on a good team, a #4 on a WS contending team. So yeah, $8 million sounds about right.

Your point about Arguelles makes some sense, if we lived in a world where changing your mind wasn't allowed. Granted, Arguelles was slowed by injuries at first, but he hasn't been as good as advertised yet.

Edwin Jackson sucks??? If he was on the Royals and had a 4.03 ERA, he'd be pitcher of the year. Heck, even a 4.53 and he'd be looked at as a bright spot in the rotation!

Rany at least puts his opinions out there for everyone to read. I would like to know what you would do. Which starting pitchers would you go after this offseason? Why? What kind of contract do you think they'll end up with?

The Guthrie/Lohse question by unknown is so incredibly myopic silly that it is almost not worth responding to. The reason Guthrie gets $8mil and Lohse gets $15 is the same reason why we couldn't have traded Sanchez for Lohse.

And you can't be overly negative about the Royals. You just can't. It's just like how I always say it is imossible to overhype The Wire.

The thing is we live in the world where Rany's allowed to absolutely love moves/players until that player sucks, and he can then backtrack and absolutely hate that player and use his stats to do his thing where he continually talks down on the Royals at every opportunity? Yeah, we actually live in that world, and that's what he does..

"Unknown, I would take that offensive season from Dejesus with his defense over Mazzaro and Marks every day of the week and twice on Sunday. In fact, I'd offer them two to the Cubs along with Jeff Francouer for Dejesus right now!"

I'd trade with you, because DeJesus had a pretty forgettable season for that one season Oakland got from him. Besides, you're not trading him *now*, you would have been trading for that one season a couple of years ago, and would no longer have him as a player..

Um, Guthrie isn't a #2 starter. He's a #3 on a good team, a #4 on a WS contending team. So yeah, $8 million sounds about right.

See, the thing is, Rany *constantly* underestimates what pitchers are going to get. So, when they sign for more, he can talk about how overpaid they are, but he doesn't go back and revise what he thought they would get vs. what they actually got. He just uses what they were "overpaid" to talk shit on what teams paid them..

Edwin Jackson sucks???

I never said that.

The reason Guthrie gets $8mil and Lohse gets $15 is the same reason why we couldn't have traded Sanchez for Lohse.

If Rany thought we should have signed Guthrie for $8M a season before we traded for him a couple of months ago, that would be one thing. But, he didn't -- he's king of AFTER THE FACT. He's only capable of analysis after things already happen, not beforehand. Which is way too late for actual baseball GMs..

I'll have to admit I almost swallowed my tongue after "unknown"s last comment. In fact, I am fairly sure hat this guy is just baiting people for fun. However...

THE POST IS TITLED "FOR WANT OF A PITCHER"!

It's not called "Looking Back, We Should Have Acquired"! He is acually doing NOTHING BUT PREDICTIONS AND PROJECTIONS! He is predicting salaries, performance going forward, and availability (later he'll be discussing trade options; really, my head might explode)!

HE EVEN DESIGNED A MODEL TO PREDICT DRAFT PERFORMANCE BASED ON AGE!

Rany isnot always right, but he is always interesting. He is always informed. He is always thorough.

He writes mostly about pitching right now (or the lack of) because he writes about the Royals. Pitching has defined this franchise for almost 20 years now. Still, he always has opinions on EVERYTHING the Royals do. So, give him a 60% success rate; and he would still give lots of ammo to nitpickers. (By the way, the day the Royals get 60% of their decisions right will be one to celbrate indeed.)